Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Directed by: Tomas Alfredson | 127 minutes | thriller | Actors: Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Ciarán Hinds, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Stephen Graham, Stephen Rea, Simon McBurney, Roger Lloyd-Pack, Amanda Fairbank-Hynes, Kathy Burke, Laura Carmichael Jamie Thomas King, Konstantin Khabenskiy, David Dencik, Christian McKay

You can safely call John le Carré the king of espionage stories. The Englishman himself once served with the MI6 (the British secret service), during the Cold War, so he knows first-hand what goes on behind the scenes. His writing style is in a sense a critique of the numerous and successful James Bond books. His main characters are a lot less heroic, but precisely because of their weaknesses they are also more human. Take, for example, George Smiley, the central character in five of Le Carré’s books, who appears in a total of eight of his books. Smiley is a modest middle-aged man who is not likely to brandish a weapon, but relies purely on his determination and intelligence. That may not sound very ‘exciting’ compared to James Bond, but George Smiley turns out to be a particularly intriguing figure. Especially when, as in ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ (2011) by the Swedish cinematographer Tomas Alfredson, he is portrayed by the great Gary Oldman. Could this finally be the first Oscar the British chameleon has earned for years?

Screenwriters Peter Straughan and his wife Bridget O’Connor, who unfortunately died too early, adapted Le Carré’s novel into a taut and very effective one. They left the original story largely intact. They shifted a bit with time, changing some locations and adding a scene here and there. The Cold War decor, of course, remained unchanged. Control (John Hurt), the chief of the MI6 – usually referred to as ‘The Circus’ by Le Carré – sends Agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) on ​​a secret mission to Budapest; he needs to see a Hungarian general to talk. It turns out that there is a spy at MI6, in a prominent place within the organization, who passes crucial information to Karla, the Russian master spy, and this general knows who this is. However, this secret mission goes awry and Prideaux disappears from the scene. Not long after, Control dies. George Smiley (Gary Oldman), a retired master spy, is now the man to expose the snitch. There are five suspects: career fighter Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), dandy Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), the seemingly untouchable Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds), the sneaky Toby Esterhase (David Dencik), and Smiley himself. Needing the help of someone in MI6, he enlists the young Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) to help him out.

In 1979 the BBC and Paramount already made a miniseries of ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’, with Alec Guinness in the role of Smiley. At the time, the Cold War was still in full swing and the Watergate scandal was still fresh in people’s minds. There was not much faith in the secret service: anyone could be a traitor, especially the one you least expected it from. Those Cold War sentiments have since ebbed away, making ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ a melancholic period piece in the first place. However, the film is much more than that. Based on the espionage story, Alfredson – who made his international breakthrough with ‘Let the Right One In’ (2008) – made an extremely precise character sketch of Smiley. It was a genius move to have this very British film directed by a Swede. ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ is remarkably stable. Of course, a few things have to be set out in the first half hour, so it takes a while to get going, but Alfredson does this – together with his trusted cameraman, the Dutchman Hoyte van Hoytema – with eye-catching visual delights and relying on a brilliant cast (with the names mentioned also fine roles by Tom Hardy, Kathy Burke and Stephen Graham).

In fact, the ‘whodunnit’ element is subordinate to the atmosphere and character sketch. Alfredson immersed his film in an atmospheric, raw glow of brown tones that transport the viewer back to the seventies. The moody, slightly jazzy and at the same time ominous soundtrack by Alberto Iglesias does the rest. Melancholy is intertwined with the paranoia of the Cold War and the loneliness of the spies ‘in the field’, which creates constant tensions under the skin. The tone is set with the nerve-wracking opening scene in Budapest, which is the prelude to what is to come. George Smiley is different from James Bond or Jason Bourne; his way of working is just as effective but a lot more realistic. With him you really have the feeling that you are looking over his shoulders and experiencing his tensions yourself, if you surrender to them. ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ proves that you don’t necessarily need an action hero to create a breathtaking spy thriller.

Patricia Smagge

Rating: 4.5

Cinema release: December 15, 2011
DVD and Blu-ray Release: May 30, 2012